In a bizarre incident, a man committed suicide after killing his daughter and ailing wife due to a family feud due to abject poverty. The incident occurred in Jota village under Salijanga Panchayat in Jagatsinghpur block on Saturday.
The man was identified as Loknath Pala, a mason by profession. In a fit of rage, he first attacked his teenaged college-going daughter Madhusmita Pala with an iron rod for which the latter was severely injured.
While trying to rescue Madhusmita, her ailing mother Kalpana Pala too was attacked and critically injured. Both fell unconscious in a pool of blood. When Loknath found that both have been grievously injured, he lost his mental balance and hanged himself in a ceiling fan in the room. Loknath’s neighbours informed the police and immediately shifted the trio to the District Headquarters Hospital for treatment where Loknath and Madhusmita were declared brought dead.
Injured Kalpana was sent to the SCB Medical College Hospital in Cuttack in critical condition where she too was received dead.
A pall of gloom descended in the village after the news about the trio’s death reached. The villagers informed that Loknath had been in a miserable financial condition. Meanwhile, based on an FIR lodged by Loknath’s brother Shankar Pala, the police have begun a probe.